On Fri, 2010-06-25 at 21:22 -0600, Stormy Peters wrote:
>
> "If someone in your talk is offended, please try to avoid a
> conversation about whether or not they should be offended. Remember
> our community is very diverse and while we all share a common mission
> to provide a free GNOME desktop to the world, we do not always share
> religions, politics and other views. Focus on the subject of your talk
> and stick to the issues being discussed without making them personal.
> As the speaker, you may have to remind the audience of this. While
> it's hard, do your best to do it in a neutral, non argumentative way.
>
> Suggest that topics not relevant to GNOME (raised by you or others in
> the audience) be moved to a more appropriate non-GNOME forum. If you
> need help, please contact the GNOME board or GNOME Foundation member.
>
> But don't worry! These problems do not happen very often - we are just
> trying to help you out if they do. Most audiences are very friendly
> and welcoming of topics about GNOME.
>
> Please go out and speak about GNOME and enjoy!"

The last paragraph, which I first suggested, was initially very short. I
think it was effective without appearing too important. It's main aim
was to prevent pointless distracting discussion. That's still possible
if we don't turn the paragraph itself into an essay.

It's useless to expand the text so much, attempting to explain the
explanation, with extra explanation, just repeating the core text with
slightly different waffling text. The document should be simple and
meaningful, pointing out simple common sense. Please don't ruin it.

I'm willing to make it shorter if the sentiment is correct. We could also have a very short speaker guidelines that doesn't include either the first paragraph nor this replacement text. It could be accompanied by more verbose explanations with pointers to other information like the GNOME presentation template, other GNOME presentations, help on improving your speaking skills, etc.